Biggles in Arabië (Vandersteen comic)/plot
Amsterdam A dead body is found in an Amsterdam canal. In his pocket is a cigarette packet which contains an unknown new drug. Biggles has been watching this from his Interpol headquarters. he drug had already turned up in London, Amsterdam and Beirut. He flies to Amsterdam to investigate. After a few fruitless days, he gets a call from a woman who says she must meet him urgently. Biggles goes to the rendezvous but as he approaches, two toughs appear and the frightened woman flees. Biggles now realises that some gang has him under surveillance and has probably tapped his phone as well. Biggles waits in vain for her to call again but then he notices a poster advertising a cabaret called "The Golden Note". It features "Myriam Hens" as their singer! The woman who called him! Biggles visits the cabaret and after watching her performance, goes to her dressing room but Myriam hustles him out by a back entrance, telling him the place is too dangerous and that she will call. Hardly has Biggles exited when he is attacked and knocked out. Biggles comes to and finds that he has been dumped in the basement of an abandoned house. But now Myriam comes in and releases him! She tells him she knows a lot and will show him the location of the new, dangerous drug, called "gurra" and base of the gang which distributes it, but only on one condition: that he let one man go. She refuses to tell him who he is, but says that he wants out of the racket. Biggles says it is not up to him to make this promise but before they can discuss further, some men approach. Myriam says they are not from the gurra gang but a rival one which wants to seize the operation--they had abducted Biggles. By pretending to be unconscious, Biggles is able to surprise them and soon overpowers them. But there are too many opponents and one of them seizes Myriam and hustles away. Biggles dashes outside and hails a passing policeman to arrest the gangsters but he is too late to stop Myriam being taken away. At police headquarters, the commissioner tells Biggles the men he brought in won't say anything but that Myriam is married to Romsen, the owner of the Golden Note cabaret. The police had long suspected Romsen was dealing in drugs but had no proof. Biggles decides to pay Romsen a visit. At first Romsen is defiant. The police have no proof against him, and he has friends in high places protecting him. But Biggles reminds him that he also has enemies. A rival gang wants his gurra and now they have kidnapped Myriam. Romsen blames Biggles for getting her in trouble and draws a gun but Biggles overpowers him and convinces him that the only way to get Myriam back is to cooperate with the police. Romsen gives in and tells Biggles the gurra is in his basement and that the rival gang is led by one Waagmans. Just then Romsen gets a call from Waagmans, demanding the gurra in exchange for Myriam's life. Romsen acts on Biggles' orders and calls back to say a basket of gurra will soon be delivered to him. Later, a van delivers a large basket to Waagman's place. his delighted henchmen bring in into the gang headquarters. They proceed to open it and out pops Biggles with gun in hand. Sirens outside announce the arrival of the police and the entire gang is arrested. Biggles reassures Myriam. She had acted bravely and because her husband had helped the police, he would be treated with leniency. But the mission is not over. Biggles tells the Dutch police commissioner that the distributors had been eliminated, now it was the turn of the producers. London Biggles flies to London where he meets with "Colonel" Raymond at Scotland Yard. Raymond introduces him to Doctor Guthram Darnley, the famous explorer and the only one who has seen gurra in nature. Darnley tells Biggles how he had found the gurra in a wadi two hundred miles from Aden, the only place where the plant could be found. The gum from the plant made a powerful narcotic. Darnley was now too old for an expedition, but two guides who accompanied him could still be found in Aden. Raymond now asks Biggles to find the wadi, burn the gurra and arrest the exploiters of the narcotic. Aden Biggles and Algy arrive at Aden where they are met by Captain Jerry Norman, who had (in this story) helped to arrange Darnley's expedition years ago. Norman has arranged for two "reconnaissance aircraft" for their use (actually Supermarine Spitfires!) but he tells them that the two Darnley guides, Abu bin Hamud and Kuatim, were not to be found in Aden. Wadi Al Arwat Biggles and Algy take off in their two Spitfires and fly out to the Wadi el Arwat. The gurra plants have been burnt and there are skeletons of dead people and camels everywhere. They find a man barely alive, dying of thirst. In a pouch they find gurra seeds. They revive the man with water and he tells them he is Kuatim. He came with Abu bin Hamud to gather gurra seeds to sell to foreigners but Abu betrayed him and left with all their camels and water. Kuatim also believes it must be Abu who burnt the gurra. Back to Aden Biggles and Algy fly Kuatim back to Aden and then give the news to Jerry Norman. Norman offers to find out where Abu is through the spies he has among the camel drivers. Later that day, Norman calls Biggles, saying he is in a cafe for camel drivers and that there is a man who will talk about Abu bin Hamed in exchange for money. Biggles and Algy hurry to the cafe but the people there deny that Jerry Norman had ever been there. A couple of hostile camel drivers turn up and tell Biggles to go away but Biggles insists on seeing Norman. The camel drivers attack but Biggles and ALgy give as good as they get. In the midst of the scuffle, the police arrive and the camel drivers flee. Biggles explains, and the policemen, who know Norman well, proceed to search the cafe for him. Under a carpet, they find a trapdoor to a cellar and Norman is there, all tied up. Norman tells Biggles he must have been overheard by enemies who attacked him. The man who was willing to talk about Abu bin Hamed had gone but he managed to tell Norman that Abu was in the service on one Sultan Ambrimos, a rich trader in dates and incense and organises desert caravans. There was even talk that he wanted to start an air service for his business needs. For Biggles, if Abu bin Hamed had burnt the gurra, it must mean he had collected seeds for it to be cultivated elswhere, probably in a remote part of thedesert. Aircraft were ideal for reaching for reaching such spots, so this made Ambrimos the number 1 suspect, Biggles decides to call on him. Residence of Ambrimos Ambrimos receives BIggles and ALgy and in answer to their question about where Abu bin Hamed and Kuatim were, tells them that the former was not in Aden and the latter had died of thirst in the desert. However Biggles now tells him that his intelligence must be wrong because he had just found Kuatim in the desert and brought him back to Aden. Ambrimos pretends to be delighted to hear this and offers his chauffeur to drive our friends back to Aden. Back to Aden On the way back to Aden, Algy asks why Biggles laid all his cards on the table. Biggles tells him that the game of cat and mouse is not over and warns him to be on his guard. Sure enough, while passing a ravine, Ambrimos' driver suddenly sends the car plunging down, and then jumps out. He is then picked up by another car, satisfied that he has made the crash look like an accident. The car, carrying some men working for Ambrimos then goes off to kidnap Kuatim to bring him to see their boss. However Biggles and Algy had been ready and had jumped out of the car on the other side, unseen by the driver. They expect that Kuatim would be brought back so they decide to lay an ambush. A passing Arab motorist with a broken down car provides them with just the diversion they need. Biggles positions the car in the middle of the road and waits. When the car carrying Ambrimos's men and the capture Kuatim returned from its mission, it is forced to stop. Biggles and Algy spring up from hiding and overpower the captors, freeing Kuatim. The Arab motorist, whose car has been duly fixed by Algy, is only too happy to drive our two friends and Kuatim back to Aden. The desert The next day Biggles gets a report that Ambrimos, as he suspected, has left his villla for any unknown location. Biggles, Algy and Kuatim set off into the desert in a Spitfire and a two seater T-28 Trojan. Kuatim directs them to an old abandoned airfield once used by the British and Italians during the war. They land and park their aircraft inside some ramshackle old canvas aircraft shelters. Biggles explains his suspicion that Ambrimos must have some place to grow the gurra. Biggles would use the airfield as a base for their search. Kuatim now says he knows of one possibility: Ambrimos had a date plantation at a place called El Moab. He had built a dam to collect water for irrigation. El Moab was only 20 km away so Biggles asks Algy to guard the aircraft while he and Kuatim depart reconnoitre the plantation under cover of darkness. Left alone at the airfield, Algy spots a Messerschmitt Me-109 approaching. He surmises that it must be used by Ambrimos as an air link between El Moab and Aden. The aircraft lands and Algy attempts to arrest the pilot but he too is armed and takes a shot at Algy, injuring him with a splinters. The pilot makes a dash for his aircraft and takes off before Algy can give chase. The plane then flies low over the airfield and drops something. It is a stick of dynamite! Algy takes cover but the explosion collapses the aircraft shelters, burying the Spitfire and Trojan under a pile of girders. Algy is worried about the immobilisation of their aircraft and decides to follow after Biggles to warn him. El Moab Meanwhile, Biggles and Kuatim have been walking towards El Moab when they spot the Messerschmitt which had just bombed the airfield. The pilot lands nearby and then takes off again. Biggles is curious about what the pilot has done and moves forward to investigate. He finds a spring of water and decides to take a drink. However Kuatim stops Biggles urgently by throwing his knife into the sand near him. The pilot had poisoned the spring with gurra, he says. They move on and are soon on top of a cliff overlooking the wadi of El Moab. Before they can discuss their plans, they are stopped by an armed man who warns them to raise their hands--it is Abu bin Hamud! Kuatim doesn't comply. Instead spins around and shoots his betrayer, killing him. This however alerts the whole camp. Biggles and Kuatim run for cover but are soon captured. They are not surprised to be brought before Ambrimos, who decides to hang them on a tree--that is how he treats unwelcome intruders, he says. Meanwhile Algy has followed close behind. Spotting the spring, he stops to take a drink and then goes forward to El Moab where he is just in time to see Biggles and Kuatim about to be hanged. He has few options--one pistol against so many armed men seems hopeless. But then he spots the Messerschmitt parked in the wadi and remembers that the pilot must have some dynamite onboard. Creeping forward, he knocks the pilot out and grabs two cases of explosive and plants them against the dam. Ambrimos' men soon discover unconscious pilot and raise the alarm but they are too late. The dynamite explodes, releasing a flood of water which sweeps Ambrimos and his men as well as his gurra crops away. Biggles and Kuatim survived by clinging on to a tree. With the mission accomplished, our friends free the Trojan aircraft from under the collapsed shelter and fly back to Aden. Category:Plot summaries